Downtown Houston in August 2017. Rising water from Hurricane Harvey pushed thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Scott Dance

Some National Weather Service forecasting teams are so critically understaffed that the agency is offering to pay moving expenses for any staff willing to transfer to those offices, according to notices recently sent to employees and obtained by The Washington Post. The worker shortages have forced several offices to stop operating 24 hours a day — a drastic step for an agency whose ethos is to prepare and warn a “weather-ready” nation.

The 155 vacancies the agency is seeking to fill by May 27 include key weather forecasting positions at offices in coastal Texas and Louisiana, states that could face threats when

See Full Page